Dis-moi! Tell me! How fun would your life be if you could actually “have your cake and eat it too?” What if you could just want cake, bake a cake, eat cake, and never have to worry about calories, sugar, carbs, fat, or clogged arteries? What if you could be like the French? Yes, I’ve seen them. They don’t really ‘diet’ and they don’t spend many hours panting around in the gym trying to burn off calories. So how can French women eat that much rich, beautiful pastries, scoff that much ice cream as they want, and still stay so slim? Apparently, it has been a curious phenomenon for quite a while, and I am not the only one who wanders about it. There is a phrase for it. The ‘French paradox.’ The fact that they apparently live longer and have a lower incidence of obesity and heart disease, in spite of all the cholesterol, fat, and artery-clogging deliciousness they consume. No doubt, we are doing it wrong.
In France, a meal is a social activity. They take their time and eat at a table with friends and/or family. They eat slowly, savoring every bite, eating deliberately. They prepare food from scratch with fresh vegetables. In other words, they make time for cooking and food in their daily routine like they do anything else. I can say we do the same in my motherland. We cook from scratch using unprocessed and fresh vegetables so what is the difference here? In my humble opinion, I think it is the amount one eats. I have always believed that you can eat anything you want in moderation. If you do not have the willpower to stop at one or two doughnuts, do not buy them and be tempted to eat all 6 or 12, perhaps? 🙂 If you are not active enough and you spend your time sitting for long periods at work and in front of the tele and hardly walk anywhere, or do any form of cardio-activity, then you should consider eating less. The French, it seems, naturally exercise strict portion control. There is no magic trick, pill, or injection that can keep you at normal weight for your body type and structure without side effects. In France you can eat a whole croissant because they do not make them huge – an ounce of croissant? So, you can actually eat the whole thing. Have you seen the sizes of muffins sold at Costco? Massive! Those muffins need to be cut in quarters. A quarter per person if you ask me!
Fast Foods by definition are made fast and eaten fast and on the go, and so are TV meals – pre-packaged and ready-to-eat. Cooking your own meals, taking time to eat together, savoring each bite, eating several small courses, slowly, with plenty of time between courses for your body’s physiological responses to kick in? Is that really the answer to the French paradox? Should we really bring food to the forefront of our daily routines, rather than tucking it in between all our other responsibilities, as an afterthought?
What are your thoughts?
